Not So Long Ago, In Iraq

Al Musayyib. May 27, 2003.

An Iraqi child jumps over the remains of victims found in a mass grave south of Baghdad. The victims were killed by Saddam Hussein’s government during a Shiite uprising here following the 1991 Gulf War.

By Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images.

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It hasn’t taken long for the Iraq war to feel like a relic of history. Although U.S. troops withdrew from the conflict a mere 17 months ago, the story of the war already seems set in a bygone era—circumstances that have quickly been buried under an avalanche of newer crises. Photojournalist Michael Kamber, who covered the war for The New York Times from 2003 to 2012, noticed America’s desire to tune out the war while the battles were still raging. Visiting home while on leave during the war’s early years, Kamber grew frustrated that Americans were ill informed about the conflict, leading, he felt, to a public that didn’t care enough about the bloodshed he was documenting. His frustration grew as the conflict wore on, as the U.S. military took an active role in encouraging public indifference by censoring what could be photographed.

Now Kamber has responded with Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq, a riveting account of the conflict as told by three dozen of the war’s most prominent photographers. Kamber’s interviews with his colleagues cover the war as they saw it—their passion for the story, their fears and daily complications, and the trauma they live with still today. Some of their images are among the most iconic of the war, some are previously unpublished, and many are gruesome, shocking, and utterly dispiriting. Most of all, the book lays bare the blunt impact of a war that, for many, remains ever present, a sadness and fierce determination found in those forever maimed—soldiers and civilians, Americans and Iraqis, and the men and women who took their pictures.

The following images and captions are excerpted from Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq, by Michael Kamber, with an introduction by Dexter Filkins. The book is out on May 15, 2013, via University of Texas Press.